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• CALIFORNIA DISASTERS [LSI]

  $18.95 $11.37 0 review(s)

  
  

  It was another time. Deadly earthquakes, steamboat explosions, floods, train wrecks, and other tragedies were a part of everyday life in nineteenth-century California. Yet, the men and women of the day licked their wounds, mourned their dead, picked up the pieces, and plunged ahead to build a great prosperous new state that took its place in the forefront of our great Union. This is their stories, in their own words. First-person accounts of the major 19th century California catastrophes. Includes scores of contemporary period photographs and other illustrations.

• Highway 99: The History of California's Main Street

  $22.95 $13.77 0 review(s)

  
  

  Stephen H. Provost Before it was a modern freeway, California’s State Highway 99 was “the main street of California,” a simple two-lane road that passed through the downtowns of every city between the Mexican border and the Oregon state line. “Highway 99: The History of California’s Main Street” turns back the clock to those days when a narrow ribbon of asphalt tied the state’s communities together, with classic roadside attractions and plenty of fun along the way. “Highway 99” documents the birth, growth, and transformation of the highway; the gas stations, motels, restaurants, and attractions that flourished and declined by the roadside; and the communities, personalities, and historical events that made their mark on the highway. From the migrations of the Dust Bowl to the birth of the Bakersfield Sound to the foundation of America’s fast-food culture, the history of California has happened around Highway 99, and “Highway 99: The History of California’s Main Street” brilliantly depicts that history.

• An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 Central

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  The sequel to the authors’ acclaimed book An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 North, An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 Central takes the reader on a unique literary and artistic journey through the natural and man-made beauty of California’s central coast.

• CROSS OF THORNS- PB EDITION [LSI]

  $16.95 $10.17 0 review(s)

  
  

  The Enslavement of California’s Indians by the Spanish Missions

• THE CALIFORNIA SNATCH RACKET

  $16.95 0 review(s)

  
  

  Subtitle: "Kidnappings During the Prohibition and Depression Eras." In California in the 1920s and 1930s, kidnapping—nicknamed the “snatch racket” by a cynical newspaperman—was the most booming criminal enterprise around. Driven by greed, desperation and sometimes plain stupidity, ransom artists preyed indiscriminately on Hollywood socialites, wealthy heiresses and even poor people who couldn’t pay a dime. Every new disappearance sold more newspapers, but for both the kidnappers and their unfortunate victims, even the simplest caper often went tragically wrong. “California Snatch Racket” brings this dark and forgotten era into shockingly vivid life. Richly illustrated, “California Snatch Racket” reflects newspaper, police, court and prison accounts of the times written in a style that places the reader on the scene. Avoiding supposition and sensationalism, the book offers true accounts of the crimes and the people. These 15 bizarre, often ironic tales illustrate the complex cruelties that flourished in the Golden Era of the Golden State. A modern city rises and lynches a pair of kidnappers. A victim begs leniency for his kidnapper in a case where a technicality demands the death penalty. A couple of college kids imitate the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping to prove their intellectual prowess and famed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson fakes her own kidnapping to cover up an affair. “California Snatch Racket” recounts its stories in the manner of the times, while leaving judgment to the courts and the readers.

• CALIFORNIA JUSTICE

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  Introducing the victims and perpetrators responsible for California’s most notorious shootouts, lynchings, and assassinations, this account shows how homemade justice is never black-and-white. In relating these histories, this discussion also analyzes how and why Hollywood storylines almost always follow the same skewed and unrealistic arc in which the bad guys abuse the good guys, the good guy take the high road until the bad guy has gone too far, and the good guy picks off the bad guys, one by one, in an increasingly dramatic fashion.